you understand,” Harriet whispered to him urgently. “Until we received the word that you had survived, she thought you were dead. She must feel like she is seeing a ghost.”
Captain Brookes graced her with a solemn expression. She too had met him yesterday, but her reaction was very different. At the memory, her cheeks grew warm, and she dropped her gaze to the floor.
“Yes.” His tone was frosty. “I am sure it is a great shock.”
Harriet ushered him to one of the chairs near the fire, a spindly one included with the original cottage furnishings. He sat, his tall frame dwarfing the chair. Sophie entered with Rose and the tea service, but her face still had the stunned expression of one recently slapped. Harriet drew a table near the fire and helped Rose and Sophie with the teapot and cups. Those few rapid domestic chores jolted Sophie out of her trance. She even managed a pale smile for the captain.
The little mantel clock chimed the quarter hour, and Harriet peeked at it in startled confusion. Surely an hour had passed already? Carrying the social niceties was exhausting. For the fifteen minutes since his arrival, Sophie refused to speak to the captain. Harriet was primed to cheerfully throttle her baby sister the moment he left. She took a small sip of tea. It tasted bitter, like stewed dandelion leaves, and a wave of nausea hit her.
Despite the tense atmosphere, Brookes responded to her stilted questions and followed the social rites like any good soldier would when confronted with a changed situation. Harriet burned with shame. When the clock chimed the half hour, he rose from his chair, nodding briefly at Sophie. Harriet helped him gather his greatcoat and hat, and showed him to the door, leaving Sophie sitting like a graceful wooden statue on the settee.
“Please, Captain.” She grabbed him, ignoring the tingle that ran through her fingers when she clasped his muscled forearm. “Forgive my sister. I am sure it is the shock of seeing you again that has affected her so. I beg you, please call again soon. Sophie will rally, of that I am sure.”
“Please do not distress yourself, Miss Handley.” He put on his hat with careless assurance. “I had a pleasant afternoon and am most happy to see your family again. I shall be delighted to call on you soon.” He closed the door behind him with a decisive click.
Harriet grasped the cool brass doorknob for a moment, her head bowed. What a bitter reception Sophie offered the captain. He deserved better. A lump formed in her throat when she pictured him riding out into the rain, returning to his lonely home. How humiliated and angry he must be. She longed to run after him, and beg his forgiveness on Sophie’s behalf. She closed her eyes, praying for strength. Then she lifted her head and trudged back to the parlor. Assuming her best “elder sister” expression, she prepared to take Sophie to task.
Sophie raised her tearstained face when Harriet entered. Her beautiful curls were no longer tucked up neatly, but instead cascaded down her back, giving her the look of a Botticellian angel. She twisted her handkerchief in her hands. “Oh, Hattie,” she whispered. “He’s changed so much…” Her voice broke and she wept anew. “Sister, I don’t love him. I don’t love John Brookes.”
She glanced at the spindly chair that Captain Brookes had occupied earlier. It looked so insubstantial without his tall frame pressing it into the rug.
“Oh, Hattie, he is not the man I remembered. He is so strange.”
“Sophie, he went to war. He was dreadfully wounded and lost his leg. Surely you expected some change?” Harriet sat on the settee beside Sophie, drawing her sister’s head down on her shoulder.
“But oh, Hattie! He used to be so wild, so dashing. And now…his hair is gray!” With that, Sophie pushed Harriet away and draped herself over the opposite end of the sofa, weeping in earnest.
Harriet laughed at her sister’s dramatic display. “He has a few gray streaks here and there, but I vow you make him sound like Father Time.”
“Don’t laugh at me! Of course you can feel coolly about it. He wasn’t your young man.” Sophie balled up her handkerchief and flung it at Harriet.
“True.” Harriet looked daggers at her sister, not caring to discuss her spinsterly state.
Sophie raised her head. “True,” she echoed. “But you handled him very well, didn’t you? Since you are comfortable with him, you can help me. From now on, when John comes to call, you must entertain him.”
“But he will be coming to see you.” Harriet flushed deeply. The thought of spending hours in Brookes’s company was too enticing to even consider.
“Oh, please, Hattie, be a darling. Can’t you see? If you are sociable to him, no one will think anything of it, because we’re sisters. And it will give me time to get used to him. Perhaps I can fall in love with him again.”
Harriet winced. She would agree to help Sophie, but not out of sisterly loyalty. She dared not admit her thoughts, even to herself. But a small, insistent voice piped up, refusing to be shushed.
You would enjoy spending more time with the captain, wouldn’t you?
Chapter Three
Wounded men moaned on every side of him. He struggled to sit up and fell from weakness. His hands sank into the mire, catching his weight. Sophie’s lock of hair still clung to his right palm. Brookes tried to pray but his brain refused to form any words. God wouldn’t save him. No one else would, either, unless he made it through the night. Wellington himself ordered that no man be carried off the field until daybreak.
A bark of laughter filled the air. Brookes raised his head enough to see. Two soldiers—Prussians, by their uniforms—looted the dead and finished off the dying. “Kurpi! Kurpi!” whispered one urgently, while the other removed the dead soldier’s boot. “Ja! Ja!” He held up a miniature portrait in triumph, flipped it in the air like a coin, and then stuffed it in his pocket.
They moved through the corpses, picking them clean like vultures after carrion, stabbing through the wounded with expert precision, then looting them as well. By the sound of their voices, they were less than two yards away. It was only a matter of time until they found him—
Brookes jerked to awareness, bathed in cold sweat. Had he screamed out loud? He grasped around under the settee until he found what he sought. There it was—the decanter of brandy and an empty glass. He poured a tall measure with shaking hands. He was grateful that Stoames agreed to return to Brookes Hall with him after the war. Stoames was the one who set up his sofa so Brookes could sleep sitting bolt upright near the fire, and thoughtfully placed the brandy decanter within close range. Good man. He deserved a raise in pay.
On cue, his batman emerged from Brookes’s dressing room, where he slept on a cot. “Everything all right, Captain? Thought I heard something.”
“I was pouring myself a drink. Care to join me?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” He ducked back into the dressing room and brought out his shaving mug. “A short one.” He politely held out the cup.
They drank in silence for a moment.
“Dream?” Stoames asked shortly.
“Yes. Same one. The looters. Before you found me, and stopped them.”
They drank again, staring at the fire.
